frankincense

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. An aromatic gum resin obtained from African and Asian trees of the genus Boswellia and used chiefly as incense and in perfumes.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A type of incense obtained from the Boswellia thurifera tree.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A fragrant, aromatic resin, or gum resin, burned as an incense in religious rites or for medicinal fumigation. The best kinds now come from East Indian trees, of the genus Boswellia; a commoner sort, from the Norway spruce (Abies excelsa) and other coniferous trees. The frankincense of the ancient Jews is still unidentified.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. An aromatic gum resin yielded by trees of the genus Boswellia, much used from ancient times, especially for burning as incense in religious observances. See olibanum. Also called gum thus.

Add boswellia aka frankincense at 1,000 mg a day and willow bark so you get 120 to 240 mg of the active component called salicin, which is also, by the way, the active component of aspirin—we like the aspirin itself.

Arabian frankincense, the frankincense par excellence, is the aromatical resin of Boswellia sacra, a tree which grows in southern Arabia (Arab. luban); B. papyrifera of Abyssinia yields African frankincense, which is also good.

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"On the demise of the dictator Sulla in 79 B.C., after a slow and hideous death caused by worms devouring his flesh, an effigy of cinnamon was constructed in his image. 'It is said that the women contributed such a vast bulk of spices for the interment that, aside from what was carried on two hundred and ten litters, there was enough to make a large figure of Sulla, and that an image of a lictor (staff bearer) was molded from expensive frankincense and cinnamon.'"

Meanwhile, over in the NY Times "Styles' section, resident perfume critic Chandler Burr is dipping into the mushrooms again. On the perfume "2 Man" he writes -

The perfumer Mark Buxton built the upper decks of this sleekest of vessels out of C11 ISO, a synthetic molecule that smells of clean pressed fire, if you can imagine such a thing; the pine-scented synthetic C12 MNA; and a high-quality natural Haitian vetiver that smells like dust on jungle trees. But the hull is frankincense from Oman, an incense cool as cream, warm as onion-skin stationery, glossy and slick as a traffic light in the rain. This technically flawless perfume (it diffuses like radium) smells more beautiful than one can say, like a perfect chord in an empty echo chamber. Herodotus warned that frankincense was dangerous to harvest because poisonous snakes lived in the Arabian trees that contained it, and I do believe my first reaction to 2 Man was, in part, fear.

(I do believe that my first reaction to one of Chandler's reviews was also, in part, fear. Combined with an overwhelming desire to confiscate all of his dictionaries and reference books)